"I don't want it put out like he was a bad person, or a mean person because he wasn't," Latonya Walker, 38, said today. "This is not him, not who he was. Anybody that knew Ja'Quares knows that."

Birmingham police said the youth was in a car that pulled into the parking lot of the gated Skyview Condominiums at 407 Skyview Drive shortly after 11 p.m. Friday. He was wearing a gray shirt around his face like a bandanna and armed with a pistol, authorities said.

Ja'Quares approached a black Lexus SUV with a couple inside and ordered the driver out. The driver pulled a gun and shot Ja'Quares multiple times.

The case remains under investigation, police said.

Latonya Walker said her son, who school officials confirmed was the quarterback at Martha Gaskins Middle School in east Birmingham, was home about 9 p.m. Friday night. Ja'Quares was visiting with two of his friends and one of his brothers in the front yard of his home, where he lived with his parents, two brothers and a sister.

A red Chevrolet Trail Blazer pulled up to the group of young men. Latonya Walker said she yelled out to her son, and asked who was in the car. He replied that it was one of his friends and the friend's uncle, and then got in the car with them.

"Mom, we're just going to the store and we'll be right back," his mother recalled him saying.

It wasn't long, she said, before she began to worry. She said she called everyone she could think of, but had no success finding her son.

"It's not like him to go anywhere and not tell me," she said.

After several hours, Latonya Waker called Birmingham police and filed a missing persons report. She said she paced the house throughout the night, and still no word came.

"It was a real rough day," she said. "I knew something wasn't right."

It wasn't until about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, she said, that a Birmingham police detective called her and asked her if she had reported her son missing. When she said yes, he asked her to meet him and look at a photo of a youth shot to death the previous night.

Latonya Walker said the account of his death doesn't make sense to her. "He got fussed at like all kids do, but he was a real respectful child," she said. "Every day was a happy day for us."

She said she just wants to know the truth.

"Even if he did this, someone had to put him up to it. Why else would 16- and 17-year olds want to hang out with a 13-year-old boy?" she said. "It's not the way he was raised."

She said her heart is heavy, and she's still not sure everything has hit her yet.

"It's like he's still here, and I feel him holding me up," she said. "All I can do is pray, and know God was ready to take his angel."